average would actually be quite an improvement
by Katie-Mariie
Summary: A hero is parthuman and partsupernatural. A hero is born out of a childhood trauma, or out of a disaster that must be avenged. Heroes are not gay, Mexican accountants from Carbondale. Oscar really doesn't want to deal with the whole superhero thing.


He knows he's wandered too far, but it's too late. He can't see his class anywhere.

"Hello! Mrs. Phelps! Hello! Is anybody in here?"

He knows he shouldn't have went back to get his lunchbox. He should've told Mrs. Phelps and she could have gotten one of the tour guides to go back into the mine to get it. Now he was lost and his new school clothes were covered in soot. His mom was going to be so mad at him. "¿Por qué te compré ropas nuevas? No más. If you can't take care of your clothes, we're going to shop at Goodwill." The other kids made fun of him enough without wearing second-hand clothes.

"Hello!" he calls. "Mrs. Phelps, I think I'm lost! Is anybody—"

Suddenly, it feels like the ground is shaking, like an earthquake. But, this is Carbondale, there aren't earthquakes in Carbondale. He remembers what the plaque in front of the mine said, "In memoriam of victims of the Knox Mine Disaster of 1959 and fallen miners everywhere." The mine was caving in. He was likely going to die and, if he beat the odds and survived, his mom was going to kill him. "Daniel, look what your son did! His teacher told him to stay with the group, but he had to go off exploring! He thinks he's Charlton Heston! Daniel, is our son Charlton Heston, because I don't remember giving birth to Charlton Heston!"

This sucks, he thinks right a before a beam falls and knocks him out. When he comes to, it feels like the entire mine fell on his chest. Strangely, although he is pinned to the ground by a gigantic rock, he's not in any pain. He pushes at the big black rock and it crumbles into a million little pieces. He knows he's not strong enough to pulverize a block of coal; he can't even pick up the bag of charcoal in his backyard. This must be pure sulfur, he thinks. Sulfur is much lighter and more brittle than carbon. The tour guide told them all about the composition of coal. Coal is made of mostly carbon and a bit of sulfur. He thinks it's possible that part of the mine is pure sulfur.

The air is thick with soot. He pulls his sweater over his nose and mouth, but it is caked with soot too and is about as effective as a Hazmat suit filled with the Ebola virus. He pulls his shirt down and inhales. The air certainly doesn't feel toxic. In fact, he's breathing much better than he usually does. This is weird, he thinks.

He wonders if he can punch his way through the rock obstructing the way out of the mine. Enough strange stuff has happened today, so he isn't surprised that obstruction spreads like the Red Sea when his hand touches it. He really is Charlton Heston.

With the rock cleared, he can see several men with flashlights a few yards ahead of him. He walks towards them slowly. "Hey, do you guys work here? Can you help me get out of here?"

The men stare at him, as if they have just seen a ghost. One of them men takes something out of his pocket and looks at it with his flashlight. "Kid, are you Oscar Martinez?"

Oscar nods his head.

The men look at each other and begin to laugh. "Oscar, we've been looking for you for a long time."

--- 

He wakes up in a cold sweat. He's had the dream again. The same dream he has every time he feels particularly lonely. The one where he's trapped in a coal mine alone, but he's naked and his teeth keep falling out. He's not so afraid of the coal mine as he can get out of a coal mine before you can say "Dead Canaries," but the nudity and the teeth thing are a bit disturbing.

He glances at his clock radio. It's seven-thirty and NPR is playing—time to get up and go to work.

---

His mom rushes up to him and brings him into one of those hugs that Oscar fears will one day make his lungs collapse. She draws back and inspects every inch of his body for damage even though the EMTs have told her a million times that he was okay.

"Mama, I'm fine."

It registers and her expression turns. "Mijo," she says, shaking his shoulders, "If you ever do that again I will kill you."

He wants to tell her that he is fine. He wants to tell her that he feels more alive than he ever has before. He wants to tell her that he went through some sort of gentile, cave Bar Mitzvah and is now a man and please don't call me mijo anymore. But Oscar just nods because sometimes it's better to just let people believe what they want.

---

Angela stares at him with her death glare when he walks in five minutes late. The thermostat is set to an unreasonably high temperature but he doesn't give a damn. Somehow putting in a good day's work has lost its value. Why work at all when you're not working toward something?

He sits at his desk for half an hour just staring at his Dunder-Mifflin wallpaper. He feels steam rise from his collar. He gets up for water and it takes fifteen minutes for him to calm down again. He is relieved that he doesn't have to ask Angela for the thermometer to see if he is making his brain melt.

---

When he goes back to Mrs. Phelps' class everyone stares at him like he's the second coming. They do some stupid science project with their art teacher: building clay volcanoes and making them erupt with baking soda and vinegar and surfactant. Oscar's pissed because his volcano doesn't look anything like a real volcano; it looks more Old Yeller before he got shot behind the shed. Oscar's just about to clean up when thick black smoke shoots out of his volcano and for a moment it looks like Mount St. Helens. Then it lights on fire. The classroom has to be evacuated and Oscar gets an A for Effort even though his volcano burnt down the reading corner.

When his mom asks him how his day back at school was Oscar just shrugs and goes to his room.

---

He stares at his books for two hours. He can't seem to bring pencil to paper. He could just slack off and let Angela do all the work. He could just write random numbers and spend the rest of the day looking at porn on his computer. He could cook the books and walk out today twenty thousand dollars richer. None of these things seem too bad to him. He doesn't know why he hasn't done them before.

Honor, bravery, service, humility and all that shit is pointless. He gave all that up years ago for something normal. Now he's given that up too.

He thinks about taking every last penny this company has and escaping to some Latin American country that he can't be extradited from.

He settles for a cup of coffee instead.

---

He passes out in gym class again. Despite his protests the school nurse sends him to the emergency room. Heat exhaustion. It's sixty degrees outside and he keeps passing out from heat exhaustion. The doctor writes him a note that gets him out of gym for the rest of the year. He's sent to the library instead and that's fine by him.

---

He's been playing the same game of Spider Solitaire for the last half-hour. He doesn't have any moves left. He stares at the screen hoping that a black seven will magically.

He computer monitor explodes instead.

"Shit," he mutters.

"Oscar, this is a place of work…"Angela reprimands without looking up from her work. She turns her neck to glare at him but notices the fireball that is consuming Oscar's computer. "Oh my word!"

Kevin looks up. "Dude…"

Dwight rushes over with the fire extinguisher. The fire alarm goes off and the sprinklers spray rusty water down on the office.

Oscar picks up his things and walks out.


End file.
